The Australian Adult Migant English Program: An Analysis of change in immigration policy and its influence on teaching methodology

Abstract

  The Adult Migrant English Program has been the leader of migrant education in Australia over the last 50 years and it has provided English tuition to more than 1.6 million migrants. Since the late 1990's researchers (eg. Welch 1996) have argued that Australia entered a new policy dynamic they abelled Economic Rationalism under the experience of Assimilation policy and Multiculturalism. Although it was discovered that each policy had caused major organizational reforms, their influence on teaching methodology itself was overlooked or thought to be minimal since it was supposed to be an independent academic discipline which ought to be free from the influence of the political climate.

  With this in mind, this paper examines the influence of each policy on language teaching, especially on teaching methodologies that orient classroom activities. After thorough analysis, it is revealed that the choice of the methodology to be implemented in institutions was not independent from policy changes but was made according to their ideological similarities to the policies of the time. The following are a match between policy and methodology; Assimilation policy to Australian Situational Method, Multiculturalism to Learner centred teaching and Communicative language teaching, Economic rationalism to Competency based curriculum.